Bioartists Oron Catts and Ionat Zurr define many of their tissue-based artworks as semi-living, and use an ethical framework to contextualize their care for these semi-living creations, claiming that their work inspires reflection on our responsibilities toward the continuum of life. There are ways in which Catts and Zurr’s relation to the semi-living does meet the standards of an ethics of care, as defined in particular by political scientist Joan Tronto, but only within certain constraints—namely, the performative and participatory spaces (...) of their installations. When their claims, as they frequently do, extend beyond these circumstances, their statements become mired in contradictions and inconsistencies, even as their work points to an original artistic practice that provokes thought about the nature of the body, of life, and of the living. (shrink)

This book looks at the use of language in science and in the circulation of scienctific concepts in society at large. More precisely, the book looks at the difficulties physicists faced regarding the use of language while creating quantum mechanics, with the use of quantum concepts in literary criticism and in literature, and with the use of these concepts by the New Age and Post New Age inclined. The principles of quantum physics--and the strange phenomena they describe--originate in and are (...) expressed most precisely with highly abstract algebraic equations. The main challenge posed by quantum phenomena does not lie, however, in its mathematics; it lies instead in how these phenomena strain the limits of comprehension. This book explores the elusive nature of the quantum domain, its problematic relationship to representation in language, and its cultural migration over time. (shrink)